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USF law, graduate, and undergraduate students may now make individual research appointments with a Zief Law Library research librarian. (Appointments with Zief Law Library research librarians are only available to current USF students. Other authorized Zief Library users with research questions may visit the research desk in person, or call 415-422-6773.)

The major advantage to making a research appointment is that you will have the librarians un-divided attention and it is far less likely that you will be interrupted during your consultation.

Please use the link next to the names of the librarians - note that the URLs are case sensitive:

A U.S. District Court Judge has sided with compelling constitutional law arguments made by USF Law Professor Susan Freiwald and the Magistrate Judge in the decision below. In a single-page Order on Objections, Judge Lynn Hughes of the Southern District of Texas noted Professor Freiwald's amicus brief, along with a brief submitted by the EFF and ACLU, as an aid in arriving at his decision.

This most recent action arises out of an opinion by Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith of U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas. He denied the government access to a cellphone subscriber’s data absent a search warrant. Judge Smith's decision noted that cellphone tracking could allow the government to compile a "digital dossier" tracking a cellphone users movements and activities. To read the full decision click here.

The present Order is in response to the government's appeal of Judge Smith's decision. In her amicus brief Professor Freiwald urged the court to treat such records as deserving the full protection of the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Such protected records could only be released to investigators who have received a warrant issued on probable cause. As the court put it, cell phone location records "... would show the date, time, called number, and location of the telephone when the call was made. These data are constitutionally protected from intrusion."

Google has introduced a new search option, Verbatim, for power searchers who want Google to search the exact words entered in the search box. If you don't use Verbatim, Google routinely will do all of the following:

suggest spelling corrections;

personalize your search by using information about sites you’ve visited before (many patrons are surprised when librarians' Google search results are different from their search results when the same search is entered, but Google uses your past searching behavior to customize results);

include synonyms of your search terms;

automatically search for grammatical variations of words, like including search results containing the word, "employing," when you enter the search term "employ."

To use Verbatim, click "more search tools" on the left side of any search results page, then click "Verbatim." Type your Verbatim search into the search box and hit "enter."